Voice and focus system in Kenyah and Penan languages of East Kalimantan (original) (raw)

This paper will focus on the morphosyntactic features of some Borneo languages spoken in East Kalimantan belonging to different branches of the North Borneo phylum, mainly Kenyah, Kayan, Penan Benalui, Punan Tubu’ and Punan Malinau. I will present a description of the morphosyntax of Kenyah, Penan Benalui, Punan Tubu’ and Punan Malinau languages from naturalistic and elicited data and also will use some secondary source data from Kayan and Kelabit to shed light on the typological morphosyntactic features of the area for the expression of focus and voice comparing the way grammatical relations are marked and the way actor focus and undergoer focus contrast is expressed. As pointed out by Claire (1996), the voice system in Bornean languages is much reduced in comparison to the Philippine-type languages. Indeed there is a wide range of voice systems, from very complex ones like in some languages in Sabah where ablaut, affixation, nominal marking and word order play a relevant role, to ...